Joe cleared his throat. “Well, it’s a benefit when the artifacts are genuine.”
Dr. DeVries’s expression soured. “Indubitably. This unfortunate incident with your father’s artifact is an isolated one.”
“And we’ll fix our mistake at the earliest possible opportunity,” Dad added, looking from Joe to Lauren.
She reached across the table and gripped his hand. “I know you will. Thank you. The Napoleon Society will come through this none the worse for wear.” She smiled.
Joe didn’t.
Joe could picture it. Right now, while he swayed on a smoke-filled subway car, Lauren was still warm at the Hotel Astor, navigating another round of small talk with Agnes DeVries while Lawrence and Dr. DeVries swapped more stories from their long-lasting friendship. In fifteen minutes, they would all bundle into their furs, go to the roof, and join in the countdown until the ball dropped from the top of the Times Tower.
Couples would kiss and cheer in the new year.
Ah well. Joe wouldn’t have been able to kiss Lauren like he wanted to with her father present anyway.
Instead, Joe had dropped off the horse and rider at headquarters, changed clothes, then caught the subway at Spring Street to get out of the cold for the four more stops to city hall.
Canal Street.
Worth Street.
Brooklyn Bridge.
At each station, more passengers boarded, smelling of gin rickeys and cigarettes as they squeezed around Joe. When the train ground to a halt under city hall, the doors clanged open, and everyone spilled out.
The lead-glass skylights were dark, but exposed electric bulbsshone from green-and-white-tile arches, and chandeliers hung from vaulted ceilings that resembled those in the Oyster Bar at Grand Central.
Emerging into the cold winter night, Joe maneuvered through a teeming throng to the southwestern point of City Hall Park. A few hundred feet to his northeast stood the domed, Federal-style city hall, completed in the 1800s. In the opposite direction, across from the southern tip of the park, a single spire rose above the colonial St. Paul’s Chapel, where George Washington had worshipped. And just across Broadway, the world’s tallest building—the Woolworth—scraped the sky. Not a bad view, if one knew how to read silhouettes in the dark.
But Joe wasn’t here for architectural history. Here, he’d promised to meet with Big Red, the informant he’d talked to last night at Callahan’s, in the meeting he couldn’t tell Lauren about. Murphy would say it was a meeting he shouldn’t have had at all, since it had to do with Connor. But he had to know. He had to ask.
Joe searched for Big Red among the half-lit faces beneath the streetlamps. Last night at Callahan’s, Joe had confirmed Oscar McCormick’s story with the bartender, that Connor had suddenly lost his taste for whatever Callahan’s was serving. Then when Big Red arrived for a drink at his usual time, Joe beckoned him into a shadowy booth and gave him a list of the guns that had gone missing when Connor was supposedly turning them over to the Property Room. He’d listed their types, their serial numbers, and the dates they’d disappeared from police control. If anyone could find out what happened to them, Big Red could.
At least, that’s what Joe was here to find out.
It must be getting close to midnight. More boisterous than the folks in Times Square, this crowd gathered to ring in not only the new year, but the new mayor, recently elected. Jimmy Walker was a known opponent of Prohibition, and these thirsty New Yorkers were here to celebrate what they believed would be the end of Prohibition’s enforcement in Manhattan.
There. Joe spotted Big Red in a black stocking cap but didn’t wave.The man would reach him in his own time, and the less attention they attracted, the better.
At five feet seven, Big Red had to crane his neck to look Joe in the eye. “No dice,” he said.
“Come again?”
“You heard me.”
“Figured that was a joke.”
Big Red cupped his hand around a cigarette and lit it. “Those guns didn’t enter the black market. I talked to the dealers on Centre Market, too. Nobody brought in a single one of those guns for resale.” Smoke puffed from his mouth.
“You’re telling me they vanished?”
“Nah, guns don’t vanish. What I’m telling you is that they went somewhere I couldn’t follow. Sorry I couldn’t help this time.”
Joe watched him walk away, cigarette smoke leaving a ghostly wake. What on earth had Connor done with dozens of guns if he hadn’t sold them?
Laughter and shouts rang in his ears as Joe made his way back to headquarters, less than a mile away. The brisk walk north on Centre Street would clear his head, he hoped.
Upon reaching headquarters, he jogged up the five stairs and pushed through one of the doors as the clock tower struck midnight. The roar from the crowd down the street at city hall followed him inside until the door shut behind him.
